my first days in Colombia

Ok, so even though it has only been a day or so since I last wrote, it sure seems like a lot longer, or at least a lot has happened! My flight from Toronto to Bogota was fairly uneventful, just watched a couple movies, and ate some gross airplane food. However, when I arrived in Bogota is when things started to get a little more interesting. Going through customs and getting my luggage and everything was fine, but trying to find my contact person was not so easy. You see, at the airport in Bogota there´s no terminal for people to wait in, you pretty much go through customs and immediately walk outside. So, if someone is waiting for you, they have to stand outside the building and look through the glass windows or sliding doors. So as I walked through customs I look to see at least 100 people pushed up against the glass and at least 30 or so signs with people´s names on them. So I walked up and down searching for my name on one of the signs, but I couldn´t see it anywhere. So I walked outside and walked through the hoards of people still to find nothing. And it didn´t help that everywhere I looked there were people asking me if I wanted a taxi or to go to a hotel. Nevermind the language barrier, my Spanish definitely needs a lot of improvement. So finally one of the hotel salesmen asked if I needed a hotel, and I told him that I was waiting for someone but couldn´t find them. So he offered me his cell phone and thankfully I had a number to call, but the person on the line only spoke spanish and it was too loud to hear anything. So after a few tries, finally this man spoke with her for me, and told me they were coming to get me in an hour or an hour and a half. So then of course he asked me for some money because he lives off of commission so I gave him a bit, but I was just so thankful that I wasn´t going to be left waiting all night at the airport. So probably less than an hour later, I was picked up by two young guys instead of the girl who was supposed to be there. Apparently she was studying and they thought my flight came in at 10, not 8:30. Waiting at the airport was pretty amusing though. An elderly indigenous woman was pushing a basket of snacks around and shaking something to draw attention to herself, which is fairly normal from my experience in Latin American countries. But the odd thing was that she was wearing very large underwater goggles, and I have no idea why! For those of you who know Peter at the Ellice Cafe, this could be his soulmate whom he´ll tragically never meet! So anyway, after that incident everything was fine. The two guys spoke English very well, and they dropped me off at a nice hostel and even payed for me. My roommates for the night were 3 guys, but 2 of them worked there, and the other was a nice gay guy from L.A. So pretty harmless, and it was a good night. I really needed sleep. So this morning Hernan (one of the guys who picked me up at the airport) gave me a half day tour of Bogota. We went on a cable car ride up the side of a mountain to visit a beautiful old church and look out over the whole city...Bogota is huge!! Then he took me to see the government buildings and the president´s castle, and then we stuffed ourselves into one of the most crowded buses I´ve ever been in...not too sure if it beats out Guatemala yet. But I did notice that almost everyone around me was wearing pants, shoes, and sweaters. I even saw one winter jacket. But it was 25 degrees celcius, and I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts...I really felt like an outsider then! I also forgot to put on sunscreen and now have a beautiful very red burn in the form of a farmer´s tan or burn I guess. Not so good of a start but oh well. Then I took a bus from Bogota to Ibague, and it was one of the most beautiful drives through the mountains I´ve ever been on. And as we got farther away from Bogota, the air coming through the windows got hotter and hotter. I arrived safely at the children´s centre in Ibague, and it is soo hot here. But the family that I´m staying with is wonderful. The mother´s name is Berenice, and she has two children, William, and Carolina. There´s one other volunteer here right now and he´s a Danish guy named Anos. So now I´m just settling in. I went to the bathroom and found out there´s no running water, apparently it hasn´t been working all day, so let´s hope that we have some tomorrow! I´m just going to have to hold all my bm´s til tomorrow...gross too much information. And apparently they have no hot water, so freezing cold showers here I come! Ok, I guess that´s it for now, time to try to sleep in the sweltering heat to the sounds of people whistling and dogs calling to each other. Thanks to all of you following my adventures and goodnight :)